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Monday, August 22, 2005

Brewed beans draw unchurched

Leslie Penn wanted to have the freedom to sip a hot cup of coffee and simultaneously be casual and comfortable during the Sunday morning worship service. So when her church, Evangel World Outreach Center in Chicago, opened the Gathering Place – a café that not only serves specialty lattes and mochas in a Starbucks-like setting but also broadcasts Sunday morning services live – Penn immediately felt at home.

“I like being a part of the café ambiance,” Penn says. “It’s like a casual, smaller church.”

...

“The church is a tool,” says Joe Rabideau, overseer of the Bikers Church at Mount Hope Church in Lansing, Mich. “If a cup of coffee or a cappuccino is going to open up a door, then that is a way we can make them feel more comfortable to get the Word of God.”

(emphasis mine)

I can't help but wonder what the actual services are like, what the preaching is like, at these churches. Do they call sin what it is? Sin? Or is sin chucked up to mistakes? Is repentance just one changing one's mind? If they are going to make the "unchurched" this comfortable and provide coffee and a lounge setting to relax in are they really going to risk scaring them off with the idea of hell? Are they going to risk offending someone by calling them a sinner? I doubt it. So what exactly are they preaching? Surely not the Word of God, perhaps the word of Mr. Rick Warren? The PDL gospel and the church growth movement rears it's ugly head again.

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About Me

Food lover, wanna be writer, mother, web designer, music lover, disciple of Christ.
More? The only thing I can say is that I'm very blessed. What else there is to say? Christ bore my sin so that I may stand before the Father in a righteousness that is not my own. I am forgiven, not because of who I am but because of who Christ is and what He has done. I am His, and every day I must strive to walk that out in faith. Each day I fail, but He is quick to forgive when I come to Him in broken hearted repentance. I can't begin to tell you how that amazes me.